Rare Company vs Vistage

Looking for a Vistage alternative?

Vistage brings together business leaders.
Rare Company brings together business owners.

If you own a £1m+ business, or you have already built and sold one, it’s worth knowing which of the two you’d actually be joining.

Apply to Rare Company £1m+ turnover or £3m+ exit · By application

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If you’ve been looking for a peer group of successful business people, there’s a reasonable chance you’ve come across Vistage.

Now you’ve found us, so which one should you join? If you’re weighing up Vistage alternatives, or peer advisory groups in the UK generally, this is the honest version.

Before anything else: Vistage is good. They have been at this since 1957, they run one of the biggest organisations of its kind anywhere, and plenty of successful people swear by them. We aren’t going to tell you otherwise just because we’d rather you joined us.

There is one difference that matters more than the rest of them put together.

Vistage is built around leadership. Rare Company is built around ownership.

If you own the business, and it’s your money in it, your name on the guarantee and most of your net worth tied up in what it’s worth, that stops being an academic distinction.

Rare Company vs Vistage, side by side.

Feature Rare Company Vistage
Who it’s for Established business owners and exited founders “All levels of leadership”: CEOs, MDs, key executives, emerging leaders, owners and service providers
Owners only? Yes. That’s rather the point. No. Programmes run across multiple levels of leadership.
Entry criteria £1m+ annual turnover, or a £3m+ exit behind you Varies by programme
Core peer group size 8–10 owners Chief Executive groups: typically 12–18 local business leaders
1-to-1 executive coaching No Yes. 12 private sessions a year on the Chief Executive programme
Expert speakers Sometimes, on subjects that only apply to owners: wealth, family, tax, selling A core part of the model, up to eight workshops a year
Structured leadership development Not really. You’ve already built something significant. Yes
Primary lens Ownership: the business, the wealth, and the decisions between them Leadership and business performance
Wider community A curated UK network of established owners A large global business leadership network
Dinners & experiences Yes Not the core proposition
Service providers seeking business Not unless they own a qualifying business themselves Runs a dedicated Trusted Advisor programme for professional service providers
Global scale No. Built in Britain, for British owners only 45,000 members across 35 countries
Established since 1957 Definitely not Yes. Fair play.
Corporate vibes Very low A more established, structured leadership organisation
Lanyards No lanyards. We haven’t checked.

Information about Vistage is drawn from publicly available information on Vistage UK’s website and was accurate when this page was published. Programmes change, so check with Vistage for anything you intend to rely on.

Business leaders and business owners aren’t quite the same thing.

Both can be very good at what they do. A divisional MD running a £50m operation is often a sharper operator than most founders you’ll ever meet. None of this is about talent.

It’s that owning the thing changes the questions you end up asking.

“How do I get my leadership team performing better?”

“Someone has offered me £8m for the company. Half my wealth is tied up in it. Do I take the money, push for £12m, or spend another five years trying to double it?”

“My MD is brilliant, but if I step away the whole thing still revolves around me. How do I build something somebody will actually buy, without hollowing out the thing I’ve spent fifteen years building?”

You can be a brilliant leader and still have no idea how to answer either of those.

Then there’s everything sitting behind them. How you take money out. Personal guarantees. Shareholders who want different things from you. Valuation, succession, how much of the place still runs through you personally, what to put somewhere other than the business, whether to sell at all, and what on earth you’d do with yourself if you did.

You carry the risk and there’s nobody above you to ask. That’s why we only put owners in the room, and why Rare Company membership is closed to everybody else.

A British peer group, not the British arm of an American one.

Vistage says it has 45,000 members across 35 countries. That scale is worth something, and for plenty of people it is the draw. It also means the room you sit in has to work in Ohio as well as Oldham.

We only do this in Britain. Eddie and Astan built it here, run it from here, and every Circle meets in a UK city. We are not the UK arm of anything.

That matters more than it sounds. A British owner is dealing with a set of problems that barely exist in the same shape anywhere else: your accounts sitting on Companies House where any competitor can read them, the personal guarantee your bank asked for before it would lend, what happens to Business Asset Disposal Relief the next time a Chancellor stands up, EMI options, inheritance tax on a business you would quite like to hand on, and an exit market where the buyers and the multiples are nothing like the American ones you read about.

You can read about US valuations all day. It is more useful to sit across from someone who sold a British company to a British buyer last year and can tell you what it actually went for.

Eight owners around the table at a Rare Company Circle

Eight to ten. Deliberately.

Vistage describes its Chief Executive peer advisory groups as 12–18 local business leaders from non-competing industries. A Rare Company Circle holds 8–10 owners, in your city, every month, led by a founder who has sold, and never with a direct competitor in it.

The smaller number is deliberate. It isn’t that we’re short of applicants.

At eight to ten everybody speaks and everybody gets known. There’s time to take a problem apart instead of summarising it. And somebody remembers what you were stuck on last month and asks how it went, which is usually where the value turns up.

It takes a while, but eventually people know you well enough to tell you that you’re wrong, which is most of what you came for.

The bigger the room, the more months you spend listening to other people’s problems without ever getting to your own.

We’re not particularly interested in teaching you how to be a leader.

Vistage’s Chief Executive programme includes twelve one-to-one sessions a year with a private executive coach and up to eight expert speaker workshops. That’s a serious offer and for a lot of people it’s the right one.

We’ve gone the other way.

We start with the slightly arrogant assumption that you’ve already got a brain. You’ve built a £1m+ business. You probably don’t need another slide deck on the seven pillars of high performance leadership.

What you might need is eight other people who have built something themselves, looking hard at the decision on your desk this week.

We do bring people in, just not to teach you to lead. They come to talk about the things that only apply once you own the business: raising children around money without ruining them, what a buyer’s due diligence actually goes looking for, holding wealth somewhere other than a company you already have far too much riding on, what a shareholder falling out does to a business and the agreement that would have prevented it, and what people do with themselves in the year after they sell. None of that appears on a leadership curriculum.

That’s a difference in philosophy, not a claim to be better. If structured development is what you want, we’d point you at Vistage and mean it.

Rare Company members at dinner between monthly Circle meetings

What happens in the other twenty-nine days.

The monthly Circle is the spine of it. Around that sits a private network of owners across the UK: breakfasts, dinners, experiences, introductions, and a members’ room where the question you’d rather not put on LinkedIn gets an answer the same afternoon.

If you’re selling, somebody in the network has sold. If you’re buying, somebody has done it five times. If you’re hiring a CFO, three people have already made that mistake and will happily tell you about it. And if a shareholder has become a problem, somebody has the scars and will show you them over dinner.

It gets more useful as it grows, which is exactly why we’re strict about who comes in. Fewer than 3% of applicants take a seat.

Nobody here is going to try to sell you anything.

If you own an established business you already know what happens the moment anyone finds out. Wealth managers, accountants, lawyers, recruiters, agencies, consultants, and corporate finance people with a deck and an invitation to coffee.

We don’t let anyone in who wants to sell to the room. It was the first rule we wrote down and it’s the one we’re strictest about.

LinkedIn already provides quite enough of that. You shouldn’t have to pay us for more of it.

Vistage takes a different view and runs a Trusted Advisor programme for professional service providers. That’s a legitimate model and plenty of good advisers come through it. It just isn’t ours. If you’re an adviser and you also own a business that clears the bar, you’re as welcome as anyone. If you want to join because our members would make good clients, you’re not.

Vistage vs Rare Company: which one is yours?

Two honest lists. If the first one describes you, join Vistage.

You should probably choose Vistage if…

  • You specifically want one-to-one executive coaching.
  • You want formal, structured leadership development.
  • Expert speakers and workshops appeal to you.
  • You’re a senior executive rather than an owner.
  • You’re developing people in your management team.
  • You’d rather join an organisation with nearly seventy years behind it.

None of that is us being gracious about it. They’re things Vistage does and we don’t.

You might be Rare Company if…

  • You own the business, and the decisions that keep you awake are yours alone.
  • You’re doing £1m+ in revenue, or you’ve already sold for £3m+.
  • You want to sit with people who have also signed a personal guarantee, not people who report to someone who has.
  • You want eight or nine people who know your numbers, your shareholding and what you’re actually trying to get out of all this.
  • You’ve outgrown being taught, and would rather be challenged.
  • You want to talk about what the business is doing for your life, not only what it did last quarter.
  • You want somebody you can ring on a Tuesday, not just see on the first Thursday of the month.
  • You want a national network to draw on when you’re buying, selling, hiring or stuck.
  • You’re tired of every room turning out to be somebody’s pipeline.
  • You want people who will tell you the truth about your business, including the part you’d rather not hear.

If it’s leadership development you’re after, there are plenty of places to find it. If it’s this, there aren’t.

What people ask us about Vistage.

What is the best alternative to Vistage in the UK?

It depends what you want. Vistage is strong on structured peer advisory, one-to-one executive coaching and formal leadership development, across a very large international organisation. Other Vistage competitors in the UK run CEO peer groups and entrepreneur peer groups of various kinds. Rare Company is built for a narrower group: established UK business owners and exited founders who want a smaller, owner-only Circle and a private business owner network behind it. Neither is better than the other. They are built for different people.

How is Rare Company different from Vistage?

The biggest difference is who sits around the table. Vistage runs programmes for all levels of leadership, including MDs, CEOs, key executives, emerging leaders, business owners and service providers. Rare Company admits only active owners of businesses turning over £1m or more, and founders with a £3m+ exit behind them. Beyond that: Rare Circles hold 8–10 owners against 12–18 business leaders in a Vistage Chief Executive group; Rare has no one-to-one executive coaching; speakers are occasional rather than core; and Rare is deliberately UK-only, with a social and network layer around the monthly meeting.

Is Vistage only for business owners?

No. Vistage’s own UK site describes programmes for all levels of leadership, and lists customised programmes for MDs, CEOs, key executives, emerging leaders, business owners and service providers. Its Chief Executive programme serves CEOs, MDs and owners, and it runs a separate Trusted Advisor programme for professional service providers. Rare Company only takes active owners and founders who have sold.

Is Rare Company only for business owners?

Yes. You need to own or co-own an established UK business turning over £1 million or more, or have a £3m+ exit behind you. Meeting the bar doesn’t get you in on its own. Every application is still assessed for fit, and fewer than 3% of applicants take a seat.

How large are Vistage peer groups?

Vistage describes its Chief Executive peer advisory group as 12–18 other local business leaders from non-competing industries. A Rare Company Circle holds 8–10 qualifying owners and exited founders, in your city, meeting monthly, led by an exited founder and never including a direct competitor.

Does Rare Company offer executive coaching?

No. Rare Company is peer-led by design: the value comes from the other owners in the room rather than from a coach assigned to you. Vistage’s Chief Executive programme includes 12 one-to-one sessions a year with a private executive coach. If regular private coaching is what you want, Vistage is the better fit and we’d say so.

Does Rare Company have speakers?

Sometimes, though they are not the point of it. When we do bring someone in it is on a subject that only applies once you own the business: raising children around money, what a buyer’s due diligence goes looking for, holding wealth outside the company, or life after an exit. What we don’t run is leadership training. Vistage’s Chief Executive programme includes up to eight expert speaker workshops a year as a core part of its model; at Rare Company the Circle and the member network are the product.

Is Rare Company a networking group?

Not really. We don’t let anyone in who wants to sell to the room, and that was the first rule we wrote down. No pitching, no swapping cards, no working the room. Members do end up doing business together and introducing each other, but that happens because they trust each other, not because it was the point of the evening.

Can consultants, advisers or service providers join Rare Company?

Only if they own a business that clears the same bar as everyone else, and they’re coming as an owner rather than for the client list. We don’t sell access to our members and never will. Vistage takes a different approach and runs a dedicated Trusted Advisor programme for professional service providers.

Where does Rare Company operate?

Britain only, and deliberately. London and Manchester are open to applicants, with Newcastle and Leicester coming next. If you’re elsewhere in the UK you can still apply and we’ll look at starting a Circle in your area. Vistage says it operates across 35 countries, which is a real advantage if you want international perspective. We’d rather be the room that understands Companies House, personal guarantees and what a British buyer actually pays. We’re not the UK arm of anything.

How much does Rare Company cost compared with Vistage?

Rare Company’s fee is set out plainly on your call with Eddie and Astan, alongside everything membership includes, with no hidden ties. The first ninety days are protected: if it’s not working, your fees come back in full. Vistage doesn’t publish standard pricing either, so ask Vistage directly for a current figure rather than trusting a number quoted by anyone else, including us.

Is Rare Company better than Vistage?

Not necessarily. It depends what you’re looking for. If you want executive coaching, structured leadership development, regular expert speakers and a very large international organisation, Vistage may suit you better. If you’re an established owner who wants a small group of other established owners, and a wider private owner network around it, that is what Rare Company was built for.

Maybe Vistage is for you.
Or maybe you’d prefer to be in Rare Company.

If you own a £1m+ business, or you’ve already built and sold one, come and sit with owners who have rather more in common with you.

Apply to Rare Company

£1m+ turnover or £3m+ exit · By application · No selling

Still weighing it up? Read what membership includes, the questions owners ask, or who’s behind it.